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March 13, 2010
Caturday Post: Words of Wisdom from the World's Richest Man
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at March 13, 2010 2:42 PM
Mexican Businessman Carlos Slim has surpassed Bill Gates as the World's richest man. He began building his fortune at the age of 10, selling drinks and snacks to his family. He has amassed a fortune of over $53 Billion. He made much of his fortune when Mexico privatized its inefficient and poorly run (ahem) government telephone company and turned it into an efficient, effective, money-making operation. (He's the anti-Chavez). Thus, creating jobs and wealth for thousands of people directly and millions more indirectly through improvements to Mexico's Telecom infrastructure.
He has also bailed out the New York Times, a newspaper known for attacking greedy capitalist pigs like Carlos Slim.
Slim has some words of wisdom the economically-illiterate Marxists currently in power in Washington would take to heart if they care about anything other than their own power.
"Wealth is like an orchard," he told Reuters in 2007. "With the orchard, what you have to do is make it grow, reinvest to make it bigger, or diversify into other areas."
In other words, to build wealth, you have to engage in all the activities the Democrats want to regulate, penalize, or outlaw.
Slim's enormous wealth stands starkly against his frugal lifestyle. He has lived in the same house for about 40 years and drives an aging Mercedes Benz, although it is armored and trailed by bodyguards. He eschews private jets, yachts and other luxuries popular among Mexico's elite.
And among America's Democrat elite as well.
He has become involved in combating poverty, illiteracy and poor healthcare in Latin America and promotes sports projects for the poor, but has never voiced plans to give chunks of his wealth to charity like Gates or fellow billionaire Warren Buffett. Businessmen, he says, do more good by creating jobs and wealth through investment, "not by being Santa Claus."
Let's face it, capitalist pigs like Carlos Slim have do more good for more people than all the community organizers in the world. Prosperity is good. Prosperity and free enterprise are the reason Chile survived an earthquake 500 times as powerful as the one that devastated Haiti. Free enterprise is the reason the economy of Texas is thriving while the economy of California is crashing.
